junglemate.com

UPDATE
Since writing this review the free junglemate service has been closed down and replaced by a paid up version called solve360 and available for $2.95 per month at http://www.norada.com/save. Personally I liked this service so much I decided to pay to continue using it.
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I use 'junglemate' as my main free webmail account but it provides much more. It actually calls itself 'Your free online PDA'.
...bit naff. When I originally signed up it was called webaddressbook.com but they changed that as it did much more. Apparently they chose junglemate because it is your mate in that big communications jungle out there - yeeuch!

It is provided by the Norada Corporation of Canada (see http://www.norada.com) and it is really a free taster of their successful web based communications solution called 'solve360'.

I have given ... more

UPDATE
Since writing this review the free junglemate service has been closed down and replaced by a paid up version called solve360 and available for $2.95 per month at http://www.norada.com/save. Personally I liked this service so much I decided to pay to continue using it.
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I use 'junglemate' as my main free webmail account but it provides much more. It actually calls itself 'Your free online PDA'.

I agree that the name is a bit naff. When I originally signed up it was called webaddressbook.com but they changed that as it did much more. Apparently they chose junglemate because it is your mate in that big communications jungle out there - yeeuch!

It is provided by the Norada Corporation of Canada (see http://www.norada.com) and it is really a free taster of their successful web based communications solution called 'solve360'.

I have given an overview of the facilities provided below but it is not complete.

**** email ****

This is a richly functional web email service with many configurable options, only some of which I will list below.

Mail Folders are displayed in split screen mode with a panel at the bottom which displays the email when you select it in the top panel. I really like this presentation format as it means you don't have to keep jumping from page to page to read your mail.

HTML messages are rendered perfectly and you can even navigate links in the bottom pane which acts as a browser.

There is an excellent spelling checker which highlights each suspect word with a drop down box of suggested spellings for you to select from. Can be configured to check in the following languages:-
English (US)
English (UK)
French
German
Italian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Spanish

You can configure email groups to send to.

There are the standard folders for Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items and Drafts.
You can create your own folders and have as many folders as you like. You can also configure rules for routing of incoming emails to specific folders.

You can configure signatures and vacation responses.

You can block specific senders.

You can configure sending of email reminders of birthdays and anniversaries (from contacts list) to two other email addresses.

You can configure to pick up email from up to 4 other POP3 accounts.

**** Schedule ****

This is a calendar facility which allows you to view your diary by day week or month (changed by simply clicking a button at the top) and easily navigate to a particular date.

You can enter a new event for any date. An event may be one of many pre-defined types (e.g. Meeting, Appointment, Bill Payment, Birthday etc). You specify time, duration, description etc. An event can be configured as recurring (e.g every year for a birthday) with a highly flexible set of recurrence rules. Every event can have a reminder configured so that you will be sent an email (to up to two locations) any time between 30 minutes and 4 days ahead. You can also attach files to events.

You can print off your schedule in a variety of formats.

I use the schedule for recording all my personal appointments etc and get it to send me email reminders.

**** Contacts ****

This is an address book facility where you can store all your contact details. You can store loads of details against each named contact such as:-
- Phone numbers (up to 4)
- Email (up to 2 private plus one business)
- Pager and ICQ
- Web Page
- Address (up to 2 private)
- Full Business Details (Address, phone, title , company link etc)
- Date of Birth (if you enter this you can be reminded by email when it is their birthday)
- Date of Wedding (can be reminded of anniversary as for birthdays)
- Spouse, children, general comments and more.
You can even upload a picture.

You can assign contacts to groups which can be used in group emailing.

You can alter the appearance of the schedule to suit your requirements.

It is well presented with alphabetical access, search facility etc.

You can print off your contacts list in a variety of formats. Great for doing your Christmas cards.

I use the contacts list as my only address book now. If you are worried about losing the info you can easily export it to back it up. The great thing is being able to access from anywhere and I cant lose it.

**** Companies ****

This is a bit like the contacts list but it is specifically for recording the details of companies. You can then associate individual contacts with these companies if you wish. The company details are different from private contacts and much can be recorded but I will not go into detail here.

**** Bookmarks ****

This is a facility for storing and organising all your bookmarks.
There is an autosurf tool which you can add to your browser so that you can add bookmarks from within your browser. The bookmarks can then be managed from within junglemate.
You can export the bookmarks to Netscape or Internet Explorer. You can also import bookmarks from Netscape format but you need a little tool that you download from Microsoft to import from Internet Explorer.

If you have no other web based bookmark tool then this is certainly useful. Personally I use BookmarkSync from www.syncit.com which is better for my requirements - but that is not free and should be the subject of a separate review.

**** Notepad ****

This tool allows you to enter and organise simple textual notes for yourself. Can be used for anything you like.

I use this for just making notes and lists of things. Very useful, again as I don't loose the stuff.

**** Tasks ****

Here you can set up tasks for things you have to do. You can configure priorities and organise the tasks in projects if you wish. The task can be given a start date, end date, status etc.

This is great for getting yourself organised and recording all those things that you have to do.

**** files ****

This is your own directory structure where you can store any files you want. The advantage being, of course that you can access them from anywhere on the internet.

In the free version of junglemate this is limited by the overall 3Mb storage limit but it is still very useful for keeping things that you want to keep safe and may want to access from anywhere.

**** Import/Export ****

You can export or import any of the above things in a variety of formats (like Outlook, Lotus organizer, separated text etc etc).

**** WAP ****

You can manage your email, contacts and schedule from any WAP device. I do not use this so cannot comment.

In addition to all of the above the environment can be highly customized for the way it looks.

Support is good. You probably won't need it but I have asked a few questions by email and got prompt, friendly and informative responses.

The downside is that you only have 3Mb of storage space which is a bit small compared to other free webmail sites like Yahoo. However, if you keep fairly tidy I think the benefits outweigh this restriction. They are really wanting you to sign up to their paid for version which is called Solve360 if you want more.

If you did want to upgrade to the paid version it starts from $2.95 a month which would give you 20Mb of secure on line storage and powerful SPAM filtering capabilities. You also have a less naff email name. However, the free one is quite sufficient for me but I might look at this in the future.

In summary I think that junglemate is an excellent free service. I have used yahoo, hotmail and talk21 before and in my opinion it is far superior to all of them. For email alone it is better because it is fast, well designed and has no adverts. But as I have outlined above it offers a lot more than just email.

If you want to have a hands-on try of junglemate there is a demo available at http://www.junglemate.com. Here you can also register and there is a link to the solve360 site which gives details of the paid up version.

Thanks for reading. 

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